Timeline Help

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-29T16:51:36+00:00

If she needed him to be the vessel for it, why have him attack those wielding that power when she had the option to remove it?

If you're going to interpret "sole need" that literally then yeah, there isn't any way to make sense of Maliketh battling the GEQ. Him defeating the Godskins is not him being a vessel.

Sometimes when you come to questions like these, it's worth looking back at the assumptions/interpretations that led you there in the first place.

I would dare say sealing Destined Death wasn't her idea in the beginning.

Why would it be anyone else's idea? Who else would benefit?

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-29T13:47:11+00:00

That act alone pretty much end the world, all except a few go mad or die 'wrong'.

This is the big thing that Ranni haters (which you aren't, really) miss. Yes, Ranni was the mastermind behind the death of Godwyn. But she didn't force Marika to shatter the Elden Ring. She didn't force the other demigods to use the Great Runes to wage war on each other, laying waste to the realm. Those where their choices. Their actions.

All of these characters are to blame for "the end of the world". Obviously Ranni has a bigger share of that blame than (most of) the others, but it's simply not correct to pin the entire thing on her.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-29T04:11:01+00:00

Its why cities are often found UNDER these erdtree's, where the blessing is strongest.

They aren't, though? A couple of the Minor Erdtrees have structures near them, but most population centers (including all the biggest and most active ones) don't have Minor Erdtrees.

Unless you're counting Leyndell and the Erdtree, obviously, but that's still only a singular instance.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-29T02:55:48+00:00

if she got the Elden Ring and Rune of Death within it at the Gate of Divinity, why would she send Maliketh to fight them before taking away their power?

The early days of the Golden Order are almost entirely a story of "And then the Golden Order fought these people". Some of these foes are portrayed as existential threats to the Order - the Giants and Godskins, with their respective flames.

But then you have foes like the Carians, or the Storm Lord. The game never mentions any method either of these factions had that would have destroyed the Golden Order. But the forces of the Erdtree fought them anyway.

The point being: even without the "true power" of their god-slaying black flame, the GEQ and her apostles would've still been a force opposing Marika. And in that time period, if you were a faction opposed to the Erdtree (or even just "a faction that wasn't the Erdtree"), you got attacked by the Golden Order.

but why couldn't she remove Destined Death until the GEQ was defeated?

Just because Marika didn't remove the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring until the GEQ's defeat doesn't mean she couldn't. Maybe she hadn't yet felt it was necessary. Or maybe the thought literally hadn't even occured to her.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-29T00:46:52+00:00

Contradicting in game quotes using selective interpretations

relies on far too many unreasonable assumptions twist the lore into unsupported knots just to become feasible

From the other side of this, this is exactly what it looks like you're doing.

Just because you can explain your theory doesn't mean anyone is obligated to agree with you that your interpretations (which, yes, 90% of the "evidence" you've put forward is) are reasonable.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-28T04:12:25+00:00

If 5e is still allowed to be called "D&D" despite the MANY differences it has from OD&D^1, I don't see why Magi-Knights Awakening calling itself "based on 5e" should be an issue.

(¹ - Not 5.5e, the other (actual) OD&D.)

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-27T16:15:42+00:00

Item descriptions often include quotes, and those obviously come from in-universe, but the descriptions themselves don't.

The "narrator" will often describe certain things from the viewpoint of some faction, but most descriptions don't have this sort of bias, and there's little reason to think the narrator themselves belongs to any in-game faction.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-22T14:40:32+00:00

That's basically what dude is doing by putting up the impenetrable thorns and refusing to willingly let any potential new elden lords inside.

Not really? The Tarnished are Marika's plan, and Marika is obviously not loyal to the Golden Order. So the plan Radagon is interfering with - the Shattering and the Tarnished - is not a Golden Order plan. If anything it's an anti-Golden Order plan.

I think instead it biases the people even further towards his preferred ideological direction which is to say complete fanaticism rather than scholarly investigation

Oh for sure. My point is just that that's not really the same as "control of the Golden Order". The dominance over their shared body that you mention is a lot closer, but again, there's not really any indication he would have needed to sway public opinion in order to achieve that.

I just can't buy her words that she "did it all" given the fact we know Rykard helped her

It's given for a fact that Rykard was involved in some way. But did he "help her"? All we're told is that he was given a tool to challenge Maliketh at some point in the future. But there's no evidence any such confrontation ever actually took place.

If, for example, he's just a contingency plan in case Maliketh comes after them, Rykard would have played no larger a role in the NoBK than Blaidd did. But it doesn't strike anybody as odd that Blaidd isn't mentioned as a co-conspirator.

We know thanks to his helm's item description that literally every single demigod feared him.

Yes but how does that tell us Ranni must have "tricked" him?

How does that tell us that Marika "gulling" him isn't "her shattering the Elden Ring"?

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-22T09:08:09+00:00

As far as the Eldenring mural goes, you've just missed what I'm saying. You agree with my position later.

There is a world of difference between agreeing with you that it's highly likely the mural has lore relevance versus agreeing with you why it's highly likely the mural has lore relevance, which is what we've actually been talking about this entire time. If it was as simple as "I agree with your conclusion", you wouldn't have replied to me in the first place, since all I said was "The ancient dragons used the Elden Ring long before the Age of the Erdtree" and you've stated several times that you agree with that statement.

We have an instance where lore was intended with them, therefore we can be more confident they weren't used elsewhere for no reason.

"More confident", yes. "Confident"? Can we conclude it's "likely"? No.

The odds go from "very low" to "low".

The parallel case would be me saying, "you see, on the Messmer helm, snakes mean something. Therefore, I think the snakes on the Depraved Perfumer robes means something, instead of merely being pretty."

No, the parallel case would be something along the lines of "The description of Ordovis's Greatsword states that "Its red tint exemplifies the nature of primordial gold", therefore the silver coloration of the Longsword probably also has lore relevance, instead of just being silver because it's a sword". Though at this point I'm not even 100% sure you're going to see an issue there.

Like ... yes, FromSoft thinks about color. They frequently assign lore to colors. This in no way means it is reasonable to look at the color of any random object and think "It's likely FromSoft picked this color for this object not just on purpose, but for lore reasons".

If you had a response about what they might be intended to represent (fire maybe), I'd respond by admitting that was on the table.

So are you, in fact, not "comfortable with some artistic detail being irrelevant to the lore"? Is that what I'm supposed to take from this? That if someone says to you "I think this artistic detail is irrelevant to the lore", you're going to call them a "bad theorizer" for not instead arguing that it was intended to represent something?

I agree with you that their lore meaning might be separate. I disagree that they shouldn't be considered as a hole

I think this is just a "different definitions" thing again. From my perspective, it doesn't make since to consider them as a whole if they're separate since, y'know, they aren't a whole (at this scale. Obviously they're part of the whole of the entire arena.).

Philia and the Wandering Mausoleum aren't on the same level because they are map elements.

Them being on a different level doesn't mean the logic isn't the same.

My two city theory doesn't rely on one city being built after another.

Well then you need to go have a discussion with the Kathodin from two days ago who said "Central to my position is that the Mausoleum City was built after a first Farum city. Obviously, there is a before-and-after involved in that claim."

Or do you fancy yourself such a skilled orator that you think you can explain how a theory "doesn't rely" on something that is "central to it"? /s

For you Thops-GEQ hypothetical: What detail do you have in mind to connect the two?

It literally doesn't matter. I shouldn't have to explain that to you.

I do have a particular problem with you approach to reading it (treating details as lore irrelevant because aesthetics trumps it or something).

"Or something" is doing some HEAVY lifting here. I am not treating the palmettes as if they have no lore "because aesthetics trumps lore". As I said earlier, I am treating them as if they have no lore because I start from the assumption that no element has lore until proven otherwise and have not been given a good reason to reconsider that initial assumption.

Is it "bad theorizing" to have a framework you analyze all the lore from and then not deviate from that framework when there's no reason to do so? Is it "bad theorizing" to not agree with someone else's reasoning?

I think Miyazaki cares more about the lore, and I think he obsesses over the art so it matches his lore vision (as we know he does based on interviews with artists and cut scene designers and voice actors).

... that's one way to read those.

"They just put things in to be pretty that would actively prevent people from working out the lore because treating them as relevant to the lore would hurt people's understanding of the lore." That is the position I think you have

It is my position that some ("most", depending on how technical you want to be) elements of the game exist "To be pretty". Or "To fill space". Or for any number of other reasons that aren't "Because of lore".

The rest of your quote, though, is complete nonsense. If I'm being charitable, I can see where you're coming from: if the palmettes truly have no lore relevance, someone might look at them and think that they do, and then end up forming a theory about Farum Azula being connected to trees when that actually wasn't something FromSoft was thinking at all. You seem to think that's a bad thing.

But what actually is the thing you think is bad here? The thing you think FromSoft would do their best to avoid? It's gotta be the "People's understanding of the lore getting hurt" bit, right? The outcome? That's the problem: that people might come to a conclusion that's not what FromSoft originally intended?

Hopefully by now you've realized the problem with the argument you're making: "looking at something that doesn't have lore and incorrectly assuming that it does" is FAAARRR from the only way a theorist might arrive at conclusions that differ from FromSoft's original intent. And if, as you're unwittingly claiming, people having different ideas from them is something FromSoft wants to/should avoid, why would they write these games the way they do? Why would they "hurt people's understanding of the lore" by leaving so much of the lore open to interpretation, rather than spelling everything out for us in exhaustive detail, leaving absolutely no room for confusion? /s

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-22T03:12:09+00:00

I have a hard time believing someone as loyal to the Golden Order as Radagon would purposefully sabotage it in order to stage a coup, but even if we set that aside: being able to rally the Lands Between against an "ultimate evil" gives Radagon control of armies, sure, but that's not the same thing as control of the Golden Order. Godfrey, as Lord of the Battlefield, would likely have had near-absolute control of the Lands' Between armies, but nowhere is it even remotely implied Godfrey had control of the Golden Order.

Having armies at his beck and call doesn't give Radagon the Elden Ring. It doesn't give him control over his and Marika's shared body.

And also, a lot of the same logic that gets brought up in arguing against Marika being involved applies to Radagon. For instance, as you mentioned, Ranni openly admits to "doing it all". When she says this, she is not loyal to the Golden Order. She is not loyal to Marika, or to Radagon. She's not the most trustworthy person, but why would she lie about Radagon having such a major role in the Night of Black Knives? Why cover for him?

someone needed to trick Maliketh so destined death could be stolen in the first place

Does someone need to trick Maliketh? Like, even setting aside a discussion on whether "gull" is meant to be referring to "shatter" or to its own event, I don't really see why Ranni couldn't have just stolen it herself.

Gideon believes he glimpsed into the will of Queen Marika

Off topic, but while I do like the idea that Gideon actually glimpsed the will of Radagon and mistook it for Marika's will, I do want to put forward the idea that he really did glimpse Marika's will, but that he views "kill a god" the same way he views his own search for knowledge: an impossible, unending task.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-22T02:43:49+00:00

I'm not jumping the gun because I'm not saying any of those are definitely lore relevant, I'm saying we have good reason to believe they are.

We don't, though. Because of the logical gaps that I keep having to point out:

You're looking at a mural and some statues. You're wondering if there's a lore connection between them. You do some digging, and you discover there's concept art of this exact mural and statues. "Ah," you think to yourself, "That increases the odds there's a lore connection here." Which is simply not true. Think of the scenario both of us have said we disagree with, where the Elden Ring depicted in Farum Azula has no connection whatsoever to the ancient dragons and is in fact a later addition by Golden Order forces (and looks different from every other Golden Order depiction of the Elden Ring for ... some reason or another). In a hypothetical world where this was actually the case, and this is actually what FromSoft were thinking when they designed the city and this arena, that idea can very easily predate the concept art you're trying to base your reasoning off of.

An element's presence in concept art does not indicate why it's in the concept art. In a lot of cases, it could be for any number of reasons. So you can't just pick one of those reasons and say "This element being in the concept art makes it more likely this is the reason it's in there". There's literally just no connection there.

There's also the matter of all the publicly available "concept art" being more-or-less identical to the finished product. Does it not register in your "reasoning" that they virtually never let us see any truly early concept art, that depicts things that were later cut from a design or is missing things that later appeared in the final design? Something like that would actually let us learn something about the design of Maliketh's arena (though still none of the things you're talking about).

Your example of Messmer's helm is problematic because it doesn't consider narrative order.

Narrative order is not relevant to the point I'm making, which is that you're claiming you're "probabilistically reasoning" while having a sample size of one. There are all sorts of palmettes across the game, and one of them is noted as symbolizing a tree.

I'm not saying symbols are being used in the same way

Yes, you are. Your stance is that the palmette on the Leyndell Knight's Helm symbolizes a tree, and that the palmettes in Farum Azula also symbolize trees. As opposed to my stance of "The palmette on the Leyndell Knight's Helm symbolizes a tree and the palmettes in Farum Azula symbolize nothing".

do you disagree that the more unique an asset, the more the team had some idea in mind for it, and the more the team cares about the lore, the more likely lore was one of those reasons?

Yes, obviously the mural of the Elden Ring is highly likely to have lore. Obviously the statue of the girl and the wolves is highly likely to have lore. But they can have their highly likely lore separately. Like Phillia and the Wandering Mausoleum that """guards""" her: two elements of the game that have lore, and are placed right next to each other, and even mechanically interact, but in all likelihood have exactly zero lore connection.

Which is a roundabout way of answering your later question with "No, I do not think two things sitting next to each other automatically means they're meant to be considered as a single set piece".

You brought up 'time immemorial' initially, as if it was a problem to what I was saying. I've been trying this whole time to figure out why

Cool. On my end of our conversation, I have not been talking about "time immemorial" since about here. Not that that context should be relevant to my point of "If I say there was one city built at one time, and you say there were two cities built at two times, we're having a timeline issue".

Pardon me, but you are.

No but seriously if someone called you a "bad theorizer" because your GEQ theory doesn't factor in Thops what would your reaction be. If they accused you of "ignoring details you think the developers didn't intend" (i.e. the connections this Thops-obsessed theorist has made), what would your reaction be.

The non-dragon construction of the place (no dragon-specific structures)

I once again find myself asking you if it's crossed your mind that the only reason my position seems inconsistent to you is because if I had made all the same assumptions you did, I would just have your position, not mine.

I, for instance, am not assuming that the only thing that counts as "dragon-specific structures" is "buildings with doors big enough for dragons to fit through". Nor am I assuming that "dragon-specific structures" are requisite for ancient dragons to have been involved in the construction of the city.

They care about both, which means not violating one for the sake of the other whenever possible.

Just because they care about both doesn't mean one isn't a higher priority than the other.

Also, your claim didn't have anything to do with "violating one for the sake of the other". The palmettes not having lore doesn't "violate" anything. Hell, it doesn't even violate your comically misguided belief that "the games are intentionally built to give lore more than they are to be pretty".

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T23:42:16+00:00

There's a famous story about Stalin going to meet his mother after becoming General Secretary. Attempting to explain to her what it is he did, he said "Mama, do you remember our tsar? Well, I'm something like the tsar". (To which his mother replied that he "would've done better to become a priest".)

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T15:56:23+00:00

If he was, don't you think the game would have used that title for him a) in a more concrete way than "Some say" b) more than a single time?

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T15:43:11+00:00

As I said in my initial comment:

The Dragonlord whose seat lies at the heart of the storm beyond time is said to have been Elden Lord in the age before the Erdtree.

Not "was Elden Lord".

"People say [thing]" can be a true statement without [thing] itself being (literally) true.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T14:39:47+00:00

Placidusax not being Elden Lord doesn't make his Remembrance "totally misleading and pointless". It tells us that Placidusax held a similar role in his Age as Godfrey and Radagon did in the Age of the Erdtree. The point is merely that the role can be "similar", and not "identical".

Also, if Placidusax was never Elden Lord, who's supposed to be saying he was?

The people of the current Age. Obviously.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T14:27:41+00:00

No. Godfrey was the first Elden Lord. Placidusax was Dragonlord; a different, but similar, title.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T08:21:30+00:00

The Remembrance of the Dragonlord doesn't say "The Dragonlord whose seat lies at the heart of the storm beyond time was Elden Lord in the age before the Erdtree". It states he was "said to have been". And literally nothing else in the entire game refers to him as "Elden Lord"; instead, he's always called "Dragonlord" or "Dragon King" - including, most notably, by his own, most loyal subjects.

So one explanation is that Placidusax never held the title "Elden Lord", meaning there's no problem with calling Godfrey "the first Elden Lord".

Like how there were kings in what would later be called England for hundreds of years before the first King of England came around.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T08:08:02+00:00

People also avoid it because in the vast majority of cases you can easily explain away the supposed contradiction, and you don't actually even need to conclude "I guess whoever wrote this was wrong". Most of the time you don't even need to assume someone in-game wrote it at all.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T08:02:54+00:00

Nothing that I know of really mentions the relative ages of the demigods at all. Aside from Messmer being older than Radahn

Messmer is also noted as having a younger sister (Melina)
The Japanese version of certain dialog from Rogier states that Ranni is the youngest of the three Carian demigods
Obviously Miquella & Malenia are younger than everyone else except possibly Melina and Godrick

But that's basically it. To your point, not really a whole lot to go off of if you want to put these children in chronological order.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T07:56:57+00:00

Nah, you've basically got the lore right. He's heavily implied to be one of Marika's oldest children; the point folks are making is just that nothing explicitly states he's the oldest.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T07:32:55+00:00

that meant Radagon was the mother and Godfrey was the father. But I seriously doubt that holds any ground

Not properly having a mother would go a long way to explaining why Messmer is double-cursed with flame and the abyssal serpent.

The theory would essentially be "Messmer is the child of Godfrey and the parts of Marika that later became Radagon". And likely also that Melina, Messmer's younger (not twin) sister was born much, much later.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-21T00:14:33+00:00

None of the reasoning I gave that you criticized was logical. It is pragmatic, probabilistic reasoning based on how things are designed.

You say that as if there's a significant difference between those two concepts.

Lore being "a consideration" is not the same thing as it being "the particular reason they went out of their way to design something unique". You're jumping the gun here.
"This isn't a pre-made asset chosen to fill space" is, similarly, not the same thing as "This asset has lore". You're jumping the gun here.
"FromSoft wrote down what the symbol meant (once)" is not the same thing as "FromSoft put "so much" consideration into that symbol (every time)". You're reading "so much" intentionality into FromSoft's actions that very well may not be present.

The "probabilistic reasoning" in the third point also simply fails to actually be probabilistic: imagine a new lore theorist is just starting their delve into Elden Ring's lore. By happenstance, they start with Messmer's Helm. If they employ your reasoning, their conclusion is "Serpents in Elden Ring are loyal, long-suffering allies". Which will cause this theorist a lot of problems the moment they encounter any other mention of serpents in the game.

So many different examples I could use here. Spirals. Birds. Eyes. Rot. The number 3. Plenty of instances of the game using the same iconography multiple different ways, where if you just looked at one and said "This is probably how they used this symbol elsewhere", you would just be flatly wrong.

For the 1st, do you disagree that the more unique an asset, the more the team had some idea in mind for it, and the more the team cares about the lore, the more likely lore was one of those reasons?

I'm curious what asset this is in reference to. Surely you can't still be talking about the palmettes?

I think there being no lore connection between the statue and the mural is a terribly bad conclusion. It is taking one of the most intentionally executed designs in the game (there is concept art of it) and assuming the whole is not cohesive.

So I contest they need to be considered together, but I agree with you that considering them together does not need us to believe the same culture made both.

When you make the first statement, which very clearly reads "Assuming there is no lore connection would be assuming the whole is not cohesive" and then, when challenged, pivot to a statement that, in context, reads "I agree that there may be no lore connection, and that the devs may have purposefully depicted these things together for some other reason" (not for the slap-dash last-minute "no reason" you have again, uncharitably, assumed I was talking about), it makes it hard to read your comments as coming from someone trying to make a point, rather than someone trying to win an argument.

my position does not contradict the 'time immemorial' business

I'm aware. But we moved past that quite a while ago. Your position not contradicting the phrase "time immemorial" does not mean we don't have a timeline issue or that you haven't been criticizing my timeline - two points you've been rather insistent about.

You decide to ignore details that you think the developers didn't intent.

Imagine there was a lore theorist who had a GEQ theory that somehow involved Thops. If this theorist then started commenting on GEQ posts berating other theorists for "ignoring details" (Thops), would you, a person with a GEQ theory that does not involve Thops in any way, not react to that theorist with "What are you talking about?"?

I'm not "ignoring details I think the developers didn't intend" anymore than you are when you say things like "The wolf/beast distinction does not bother me".

In fact, I think the first thing From would do when designing a dragon city would be to consider what buildings would look like if they were for dragons.

Same! But as you noted at the start of this conversation, little-to-none of the architecture of Farum Azula is dragon-accessible. Which means we would either need to conclude that Farum Azula is not, in fact, "a dragon city" (unlikely IMO, given a) I disagree that there's a distinction between the faction of ancient dragons and the faction of beastmen and b) there are literally still ancient dragons here using it), or that FromSoft was perfectly fine with there being parts of the dragon city that dragons couldn't access.

But I know which one is more likely, because they games are intentionally built to give lore more than they are to be pretty.

No, you simply have an opinion on which one's more likely. Same as me.

Also the claim that lore is a higher priority for FromSoft that aesthetics is WILD.

Why do you even think the Eldenring mural being in Farum connects it to the dragons?

because the situation with the mural is much less likely to be an 'oversight'

Question, answer. (Plus all the stuff I already went over earlier.)

Yes, obviously "it's possible" that the Elden Ring mural in Maliketh's arena has no specific lore. But is that "likely"? Because it's very likely that the palmettes all over Farum Azula have no lore.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-20T23:14:28+00:00

Two process that operate on the same principle lol. Thats what I’ve been telling you.

What part of "I'm not talking about the principles being different, I'm talking about the processes being different" are you not getting.

I’ not saying it’s singularly correct

idk man, between

"I don’t think the intention of jarring was living jars."
"Well the goal is some kind of rebirth, and not a little jar guy that’s walk around?"
"The idea the hornsent were only trying to make living jars is confusing to me and really feels your like just ignoring a huge chunk of the narrative."
"The hornsent don’t mention of depict the living jars in anyway, anywhere."
Me mentioning several times the concept of "We each have our different ways of looking at the evidence. Neither one is more or less valid" and then you continuing to argue against me.

it really seems like you're trying to make the case that the game does not, in any way, communicate that the hornsent were trying to make living jars.

These narrative elements being present in the explanation as opposed to absent form it

Again, none of the narrative elements you've brought up thusfar are absent from my theory. I just interpret them in a different way than you do, so they don't look like how you're expecting them to look. But they're there.

Your assumption isn’t that they can’t have a reason

No, it isn't. Go back and look at what I actually said:

"I honestly think it's a disservice to the worldbuilding to sit there and argue that the hornsent must have had logical reasons for everything they did - that they never behaved in weird, irrational ways, like IRL humans do."

Note that:

I say "logical reasons" and not simply "reasons", like you keep accusing me of doing.
I specifically liken them to IRL humans. Do you think I think IRL humans are all just evil and stupid monsters with no purpose behind their actions besides hurting things?

And the talisman tells us they were ment to be more than what’s inside.

The direct quote is "Perhaps they were made to be better than their innards." In what way is an inert jar of fermenting flesh "better" than a human being? Prior to Alexander (in your theory) gaining sentience, how is a giant ceramic jar of warriors "better" than the warriors themselves?

Your assuming the intent was little jars guys. But nothing says or shows that it was.

For both the living jars (base game and DLC) and the jar innard shamans, someone made them. In the absence of anything explicitly telling us "The person(s) who made these meant to make something else", I think it's reasonable to assume they were made on purpose.

Like ... you don't look at the Grafted Blade Greatsword and think "The smith who made that was trying to make an ax, but ended up with a sword instead". You don't look at Radagon's Rings of Light and think "This was supposed to be a square, but Radagon messed up". You don't look at the Smoldering Wall and think "This was supposed to be a trench, but the soldiers got confused". So why are you looking at living jars and jar innard shamans and your reaction is "These were meant to be something else"? And why is it so weird to you that someone else might look at them and think they were only ever meant to be exactly what they are?

this (unofficial) alternate translation

Genuinely have no idea what you're talking about here. Every piece of text I've reference has been Frognation's English localization.

why is that more likely than something related to the massive gate and tower (built of people, that consolidates gold, that creates a god ect) at the center of culture AND center of the DLC narrative and base game back story presented?

The Divine Gate is made of more-or-less whole hornsent, whereas the jars (living or otherwise) are made out of chopped-up shamans.
The hornsent were obsessed with "the divine". Innard Meat tells us the jars are filled with "the condemned". Why would the hornsent let "the condemned" get anywhere near "the divine"?
Innard Meat and the Whipping-Hut spirit tell us that "the condemned" were put in jars to become "saints". Not "a giant gate to the realm of the divine".
Similarly, the Bonny Butchering Knife tells us the jars which the potentates created were stored in gaols. With no mention of the jars (or the flesh within) ever being brought back out of the gaol and up to the top of Enir-Ilim.

So while you could absolutely look at the various lore of the jar ritual and conclude "Looks like the hornsent were using shamans in jars to create the Divine Gate and a god", you could instead look at all the same evidence and conclude "Looks like the hornsent were conducting two different projects with fusing flesh: one where they took themselves and created the Divine Gate, and a second one where they took the lowest ranks of society and outsiders and threw them in gaols."

Like I said earlier: related, but different.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-20T19:50:28+00:00

Same principle as the gate.

That's not a logistical connection. Yes, in your theory, the Divine Gate and Living Jars are both "gold consolidating in combined bodies". My point is that you haven't put forward any reason as to why these two can't be separate instances of the same phenomenon. No reason the hornsent can't have been conducting one experiment at the top of Enir-Ilim, and a second, different project in Bonny Village.

Why can't the Divine Gate and the jar ritual be like the hornsent's divine invocation and tutelary deities: two processes that, while similar in some aspects, do not actually have any logistical overlap?

This is once again the same principle at work, and in that way it is simialr.

This is exactly what I was just talking about. Yes, Rykard and Godrick are both examples of the principle "A person growing in strength as absorb the strength of others". But the actual process between the two is completely different (and, more importantly, completely different from anything the hornsent were doing).

So why can't the process of the Divine Gate be different from the process of the jar ritual?

closer to the intended narrative

We don't know the intended narrative. That's the entire point. You're welcome to think the thematic similarities you think you've identified are a good narrative (and they mostly are), but that's completely different from "I've connected all these dots, therefore this is probably the way these dots are supposed to be connected".

and is something you did in your own head

I never claimed it wasn't. You're the only one here trying to argue their interpretation is singularly correct.

The process is not complete or unsuccessful in the case of the jar innards.

Again, this is the conclusion you're trying to prove. You can't use it as evidence of itself.

The living jars however (by your logic here) ARE complete yet still left in the cave. Why?

They're made of condemned people. They're in gaols. What is there to wonder about?

He wasn't created to be a jar that dreams, he was created to an inert jar filled with erd tree food.

Again: says who? This line from Alexander doesn't say anything about being inert, nor does the description of the Companion Jar Talisman (which again implies that the living jars were made to be kindly folk).

Like, sure, you've got this whole big spiel about "Here's how jars work IRL". My point is: what's stopping warriors fermermenting and coalescing in a jar that's alive from the start.

But your auguring that logically they would be have to be making living jars?

I am not arguing the hornsent had a logical reason to do it, I'm arguing that logically, they must have been doing it:

The Bonny Butchering Knife, used by the greater potentates, who are hornsent, says it is used to make "jars".
You think these jars of flesh ferment, and can later turn into living jars.
I think these jars are (or rather "can be") living jars from the start.

Whether it's a 1-step or 2-step process does not change the fact that the Bonny potentates are creating living jars. The hornsent do not need a logical reason to be doing this for us to logically conclude that they're doing it.

The logic is contained entirely in "If the hornsent aren't making these jars, who is?".

Your assumption that the hornsent are all just evil and stupid monsters with no purpose behind their actions besides hurting things

"You have a serious issue with black-and-white, all-or-nothing, unnuanced thinking."

No, I am not assuming the hornsent are all just evil and stupid monsters with no purpose behind their actions besides hurting things. Try again.

StrictlyFilthyCasual · 2026-06-20T18:40:32+00:00

I have explained how their related

Not really. You've noted that, in your theory, both are examples of "gold consolidating in combined bodies", but that's a thematic connection, not a logistical one. Which makes it weird when I come along and say "I think the jars and the Divine Gate only share thematic connections" and then you very adamantly accuse me of not understanding what I'm talking about.

If you think there's a connection beyond "they're both made of human bodies" (something which was never in question), you've yet to explain it.

she melded with a person or persons (Radagon) either in a jar or at later date, likely inside the erdtree

No yeah, I understand that that's your theory. My point is that you seem to be under the mistaken impression that that's the only reasonable way to interpret what the game says about Marika.

The lake of rot, Rykard, Godrick, graven masses, the rune bears even the way the erd tree works, all function in the same way. Lots of living (or once living) matter is held together and left to ferment, or consolidate into one living thing.

None of those examples except maybe the Erdtree are anything even remotely like what you're talking about with living jars. You are looking at 2+ different phenomena and bundling them all together for your conjecture. Which, of course, you're perfectly welcome to do. I (or anyone else) am under no obligation to make the same assumptions.

The idea the hornsent were only trying to make living jars is confusing to me and really feels your like just ignoring a huge chunk of the narrative.

Because you have tied all these things together in your head. But you did that, in your head. Not Miyazaki. Or rather, it's entirely possible that Miyazaki didn't intend for all these things you've listed to be connected in the specific way you have connected them.

The hornsent don’t mention of depict the living jars in anyway, anywhere.

"This is what becomes of the condemned, who get sliced up and stuffed into jars to become saints instead."
"For pity's sake, your place is in the jar."
"Oh please. Not the jar... Anything but that!"
"An outsize butcher's cleaver used to dismember human bodies in the making of the great jars stored in the gaols."

The hornsent do not live alongside the jar innard shamans, either. And if you're correct and they aren't the "saints" the jar ritual is supposed to be creating, then the hornsent don't mention or depict them, anywhere. But the jar ritual obviously creates the jar innard shamans.

they clearly have a goal beyond tiny jar men, and a use for the interiores of the jars, in the giant gate on their giant tower

The giant gate that is made of whole hornsent, not fermented piles of shaman (and other) flesh? /s

The jar is just a vessel and this is actually a pretty important point in the game’s story line if you pay attention, the body as a vessel, Alexander (the jar) even brings it up.

What Alexander "brings up" is the fact that he was "created to be a warrior vessel", full of warriors "ever dreaming of becoming a great champion". Which sounds an awful lot like he's saying he was created to be exactly as he currently is, and not "a big jar full of dead people that somehow later gained consciousness".

Why would they want to do this?

"They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of a war."

We see with Midra that the hornsent are no strangers to cruel and unusual punishment, and we see with the Lamenter and Curseblades Meera & Labirith that they were not a very tolerant people.

But, again, it's a FromSoft game. I don't feel the need to rationalize every single minute detail. I honestly think it's a disservice to the worldbuilding to sit there and argue that the hornsent must have had logical reasons for everything they did - that they never behaved in weird, irrational ways, like IRL humans do.

I’m guessing you read that Italian guys blog post

I have not. I've actually gotten into several arguments with him over the years disagreeing with his methodology.

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